13 For my people have committed two crimes: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug water-tanks for themselves, cracked water-tanks that hold no water.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 36:6-7, 8-9, 10-11

6 your saving justice is like towering mountains, your judgements like the mighty deep. Yahweh, you support both man and beast;

7 how precious, God, is your faithful love. So the children of Adam take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

8 They feast on the bounty of your house, you let them drink from your delicious streams;

9 in you is the source of life, by your light we see the light.

10 Maintain your faithful love to those who acknowledge you, and your saving justice to the honest of heart.

11 Do not let the foot of the arrogant overtake me or wicked hands drive me away.

Gospel, Matthew 13:10-17

10 Then the disciples went up to him and asked, 'Why do you talk to them in parables?'

11 In answer, he said, 'Because to you is granted to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not granted.

12 Anyone who has will be given more and will have more than enough; but anyone who has not will be deprived even of what he has.

13 The reason I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding.

14 So in their case what was spoken by the prophetIsaiah is being fulfilled: Listen and listen, but never understand! Look and look, but never perceive!

15 This people's heart has grown coarse, their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes tight to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear, their heart to understand, changing their ways and being healed by me.

16 'But blessed are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear!

17 In truth I tell you, many prophets and upright people longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.

Bible Resources

The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.